


Queen of Babble

by AsarInrahe



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Friendship/Love, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 09:49:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2020482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsarInrahe/pseuds/AsarInrahe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver traces Felicity's phone to Las Vegas. She is visiting to meet her mother's new fiance, who turns out to be a shady character.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Troubling

**Author's Note:**

> I've always wanted to meet Felicity's mom, so I made her up. Too bad she has a terrible taste in men, in my mind...

Oliver had sharpened his arrows. That was nothing new. He had brushed his hood and sprayed coating on the leather parts of his 'hoodiform' (Felicity had, obviously, come up with that). He had even swiped the floor at their new lair and checked all of the training gear, feeling the floor around the training mat for any nails that stuck out, hammer at the ready. He had found none. He had arranged the arrows by function and fiddled with the mechanics of the explosive arrows long enough that Diggle was starting to get worried. 

He turned the page on his book, glanced up at Oliver as he started to string a new bow. When he took up the brush again and went in search of imagined dust mites around the edges of the training mat, Diggle put down the book, sighed and looked at his friend. No effect. After the next chapter he glanced up again. Oliver was standing behind the arrow stand and setting all of the arrow points in the same angle. When he was finished, he started again, to a different angle. Diggle fished the bookmark from among the remaining pages and snapped the book shut on it. The sharp noise finally caught Oliver's attention.

They looked at each other for a while. One of Oliver's hands was tapping the edge of the arrow case nervously.

"Where _is_ Felicity?" he asked as if they had been just talking about her.

Diggle shrugged.

"She's not again in Central City?"

"Nah, I don't think so. Now that Barry's awake, I've heard less and less about him."

Oliver looked down. He had seen Barry. Just once, when he run to Starling City to angst about himself. But as far as Oliver knew, he had headed back to Central as soon as they were finished. Well, actually, Oliver had made his cool exit and swung himself to a perch where he could see him leave the city. So if he hadn't doubled back that night, he hadn't really been around since he woke up from the coma.

"Too bad she has a thing for guys with hero complexes," Diggle chuckled.

"So she's not at Lyla's baby shower?"

"She was supposed to be, but she cancelled yesterday. I think she felt strange to spend time with Lyla's old college friends, the ones who live lives where they've never had to deal with a gunshot, or a mad drug lord. Lyla said she does, a bit," Diggle sighed.  "So, she's not with us, she's not at the QC and she's not at the baby shower. It's a quiet night. The girl has a life, I think it's commendable."

Diggle opened the book again. Oliver walked to Felicity's screens.

""Would it be weird if I traced her phone?"

"Yes, Oliver, it would be very weird," this time he didn't look up from the book. "You could always just call her and ask her where she is."

Diggle watched Oliver pick up the phone and set it down again.

"She's just always normally... _here_ ," Oliver muttered.

                                                                      *                                      *                                            *

Felicity could hear her phone ringing upstairs in her room. She could hear it, but there was no way of getting to it now. It could be something important. It could be John, or Oliver calling about a case. She had not personalized the ringtones for her new phone yet. She cursed her clumsiness again. She had dropped the phone on the concrete, when her mother had come to the airport to pick her up. She also blamed the weather, the hot wind that made her want to rush from air conditioned building or vehicle to another as soon as possible. Most of all, she blamed her mother's new boyfriend.

Felicity's mother had always hung out with shady characters, Felicity's father included. But this took the cake. The guy who had walked toward her across the airport floor with her mother was probably a couple of years older than Felicity. More often than not that was the case with her mother's boyfriends nowadays. Although this one had been dressed rather more formally than usual.

Her mother had given her a kiss on both cheeks, missing the general direction of her head, or at least avoiding it by several inches on both sides. She had clutched her hand for a second with her long-nailed fingers and then flicked her curly hair, grabbing Felicity's ponytail.

"Why do you pull your hair up, honey? It's so much prettier when it's down," she had complained in greeting.

"Mom..."

"This is Dean, honey. Give him your bags, we're parked just outside."

"Oh, it's alright..." Felicity had tried to say, but Dean had grabbed hold of the handle of her small suitcase and led the way back toward the exits.

The background music of Felicity's childhood, her mother's chatter, had been turned on immediately. She had complained about the weather, the traffic, the neighbors... If John and Oliver only knew how much her mother talked compared to her, Felicity had almost smiled, but had been interrupted in her thoughts when they stepped into the car park and she saw the car into the trunk of which Dean was lifting her suitcase. She had glanced around in the vain hope that this would turn out to be some kind of joke. Dean had got into the front seat and the limousine had slid toward her stunned self and her mother who was still talking.

"Dean's the driver?" Felicity had interrupted her mother.

"Yes honey, I told you that."

Felicity hadn't been listening.

The first thought that had come to Felicity's mind was that maybe it was a hearse. But she had seen Oliver sliding into and out of enough of this kind of cars that she couldn't but trust her eyes.

The car had slid out of the parking garage and into the sun, which was already beating down on Felicity's pale skin. She had had to dig out her phone to snap a photo for the guys. Then she had realized that she had decided not to tell them about the visit. She had snapped the cover on the phone just as the back door opened and a tall man stood out of the dark to extend his hand to her mother.

"Honey. This is Dwayne," her mother had cooed and disappeared into the car. Dwayne was about her mother's age. He had dark hair, some gray at his temples. Thick eyebrows dominated his facial features, but the most captivating were the eyes. They were blue as glass. The irises were darker at the edges and the color seemed to fade almost to white around the pupil.

During the last few years Felicity had come across a fair amount of colorful characters. Most of them showed some emotion in their eyes, even Slade, with his mad rage, the Count and the Dollmaker with their manic obsessions. Even Oliver, though he excelled at hiding his emotions... No, Felicity could not compare this man to Oliver, no way.  Except as a contrast. Oliver hid so much that his gaze was aflood with it. This man seemed to hide nothing, seemed to feel nothing.

Felicity had seen the edges of his mouth turn up to an imitation of a smile. Felicity had followed suit. The skin around the man's eyes even crinkled in a way that would have been endearing, had the smile been genuine. The phone had fallen from her hands, the perfect excuse to drop her gaze. She had picked up the pieces and then shook Dwayne's warm hand, and finally stepped into the car.

 


	2. Meghan?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver finds Felicity in a tight spot. Completely deprived of her most important life source.

Oliver adjusted the headrest on his seat and turned to stare out of the window once more.  It was dark outside. He replayed the conversation with Diggle once more in his head.

Oliver didn't think it was intrusive to trace Felicity's phone. Not when she had not been answering it or calling back for such a long time. And no, Oliver didn't think that half a day was a relatively short time.

When the program finally located her in Las Vegas, Diggle sighed and smacked the back of his head.

"She's visiting her mother."

"Maybe..." Oliver stared at the screen. The program gave him an adress of a large modern house. The name Dwayne Hart blinked into sight. "Or maybe not."

"Oh..".

"Yes, 'oh'."

"Should I come too?" Diggle asked.

"I think I can manage. Lyla's due any minute. I'll check if Roy's available."

"Don't be too hard on the bad guys."

But Oliver had boarded the plane alone. The good thing about company jets had been that no one questioned if he took a bow and an arrow on it.  Depending on the situation, he would have to arrange something when he arrived.

When he got to the hotel, he threw his bag on the bed and dug out his phone. He tried Felicity's number once more, but there was no answer. Felicity wasn't in the large house anymore. She was a few miles to the east, in a smaller house, the owner of which was someone called Barbara Johnson. Oliver sighed in relief. It would be far easier to sneak into a normal residence than to Dwayne Hart's huge complex that was definitely guarded from all sides.

Oliver dressed in jeans and a grey hoodie and took a cab to a couple of blocks from where Felicity's phone's location pulsed like an artificial heart. He decided to scout the place first. The house was in the middle of the block, so there were no corners behind which to lurk. Oliver started to walk the sidewalk slowly as if he was just passing by.

The house was small, the yard burned by the sun. There were lights on every window on the  first floor. The second floor was dark, except a dim light in one of the windows. It faded away. Someone must have opened and closed a door to a dark room.

Oliver was now nearly in front of the house. The screen door opened and someone stepped out of the door and slumped onto the bench on the porch. The dim light of a phone screen reflected from Felicity's glasses.

                                  *                                           *                                             *

Finally, finally she had escaped them. Her mother's crazy friends from her casino days. She actually liked this bunch of women more than her mother's new friends at the 'mansion'. The word mansion always brought into mind the wooden warmth of the Queen mansion. She had never really liked that one either, but at least it seemed like a home. The white and steel monstrosity with invisible glass walls was from another world. Felicity rubbed her nose in memory of walking into that glass wall. They should set up signs! At least when she was around...

As soon as she could sneak away, Felicity had grabbed her new phone from her room and slipped to the porch. There was only one new call. Oliver. Felicity sighed, wondering what she was missing now in Starling City and called him back.

She was startled to hear a familiar ringtone sounding from just a few feet away. She had to blink a couple of times, to believe her eyes. The familiar figure of Oliver Queen was striding up to her mother's house, up the porch stairs until he stood in front of her.

"Felicity."

"Oliver, what on earth are you doing here?"

"Are you alright?" Oliver seemed to be eyeing her as if expecting to find some kind of injury.

"What? Yes, of course I'm alright. Are you? What are you doing here?"

"I... We... We were worried about you. You haven't been answering your phone or your email," Oliver Queen seemed dangerously on the brink of stammering.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry, my phone broke. And I got a new one, or my step-daddy-to-be got me one and I just got around to setting it up. I haven't had time to dig out my tablet yet. It's been crazy."

"Step... what? Why are _you_ here?" Oliver asked, baffled.

"I'm visiting my mom. Really Oliver, I think at least John should have remembered that my mom lives in Vegas."

" _I_ did, so does Digg, but what did you say about a new step father?"

"Well... My mom's engaged to this really filthy rich - sorry, I don't mean you, oops, you're not rich anymore - really really really really creepy guy," Felicity shuddered, she then made space for Oliver on the pillows on the bench and waited for him to sit down. "Although I think it's a bit of an overreaction, I'm so glad you're here. I know this was probably not what you meant when you told me that I could tell you about my day, but I would really like for someone else to freak out with me. Or well, if not freak out, then at least be a tiny bit worried."

"Felicity, is this your 'step-daddy-to-be'," Oliver almost smiled, "by any chance called Dwayne Hart?"

"Yes! How did you know? Oh, stupid question. You weirdos have been tracking me."

"Well, I'm glad I... we did. Dwayne Hart is one of Sin City's most notorious criminal leaders."

"Oh..." Felicity said in a small voice. Her shoulders slumped and she felt at the same time disappointed and relieved. And then she felt at tinge of fear. "Oh, shit! My mom's engaged to a mafioso. Figures..."

Oliver laid a comforting hand on Felicity's shoulder and shifted her hair a bit out of the way to see if she was actually crying. Her back had started to tremble, but instead of tears, Oliver saw some kind of manic mirth twist her face as she burst in to hysterical laughter.

She could't stop for a while, but she thought it seemed the better option from hysterical crying. Oliver rubbed her back with his hand and she slowly calmed down. She took of her glasses and wiped her eyes.

"Sorry, sorry... I think I've just had way too much to drink."

Only now he started to take in Felicity's appearance.

"What's the occasion?" he asked. Felicity was dressed in a fairly horrible pale pink polyester gown with frilly sleeves and hem and there were pink, blue and green feathers twisted into her hair here and there.

"Oh, it's just my mom's hen night," she answered, hiccuping, almost giving way to another burst of laughter. "This is so not funny at all. But considering my mom, it really feels inevitable."

At that moment the screen door clunked open and a woman with frizzy hair stepped out of the house.

"Meghan, what are you doing here, honey?" the woman asked and then noticed Oliver. "Well hello!"

Before Oliver could properly react, he had been dragged inside the house, mistaken for the online-order stripper, recognized as the ex-millionaire, ex-boss of Felicity who came up with an unbelievable excuse of him just happening to be in the neighborhood, introduced to Barbie Johnson, Felicity's mother and her seven squealing friends, speculated about, fed chocolates in questionable shapes, poked and prodded by all the women in the small, feather filled living room, questioned again about his lame excuse for a visit, and finally dragged forcibly, because at least four women were clinging to him, by Felicity upstairs to her room.

"My room has a lock on its door," Felicity hissed as she pulled him up the narrow stairs. Her room was in the corner of the house. She slammed the door shut and flicked on the lights. "It's also easiest to jump to the porch roof from here, if we need an escape plan."

"And how do you know that?"

"What do you think?"

Oliver didn't think, he was looking around in the tiny room. It was roughly the size of his closet in the mansion. He recognized a couple of the posters of sci-fi tv shows on the walls. Felicity had at some point watched some episodes in the lair, when it had been slower, or when they had been waiting for something. The posters were the only sign, however slight, of rebellion in this room. Otherwise it must be exactly as Felicity's mother had imagined her daughter.

"Where are all your science trophies?" Oliver wondered.

"I kept them in the closet, but when I moved out, mom threw most of them away."

"Is this you?" Oliver stepped to a shelf which was filled with pictures of a little girl in frilly gowns, not much unlike the one Felicity was wearing now. There were dozens of them, some obviously taken by professional photographers.

"Obviously. My mom wanted for me to be a beauty queen," Felicity rolled her eyes. She stumbled a bit where she stood and walked to the window. "Could we now start focusing on the crisis at hand? Sorry about my hysterics. Now you've met my mom, you have probably some idea how she is. I mean, finally she meets the right guy. Right by her standards anyway. He's filthy rich, he's handsome, he's interested. He's a criminal master mind."

"Wait wait wait," Oliver interrupted staring at a pillow that had a name embroidered on it in twirly letters. "Meghan?"

"Yeah, Felicity dragged out the word."

"I thought Meghan was your middle name, but that was what your mother called you."

"It is, my middle name. But it's actually also what my mom calls me," Felicity repeated.

"And Smoak?"

"That's my mom's parents' surname. I thought you had checked up on me before you asked for my help." Felicity twirled a ribbon from the curtains between her fingers. "Oh, yeah... I think I covered that up when I was in high school..."

Oliver stared at her in amazement. He realized that he could only blame himself. Checking up on a master hacker only from electronic sources was nothing if not dumb.

"Oh, come on! I didn't change anything else. Just the name. And it's officially changed as well. I'm not actually some secret spy trying to infiltrate your operation with the cunning use of babbling. Do I seem like a criminal master mind to you?" Felicity rolled her eyes. "But I know someone who is, and he's the one we should be focusing on now, right?"

"Digg sent you the layout of Hart's mansion, we should check it out," Oliver shook himself and sat down on Felicity's bed. It was covered in a pale pink throw with darker flowers and hearts on it. Felicity blinked a couple of times.

"You have no idea how weird it is to see you here," she smiled and Oliver wondered what was going on in her mind. "But we can't do anything here. About the case I mean. Obviously."

"Why?"

"No Wi-Fi. No Internet."

"Okay, now I understand why you know so well the escape routes," Oliver smiled.

"Yup. So if you have a hotel room, a hovel, anything really, that has a connection to the outside world except the devilishly slow phone service here, I'll take it."

There was a knock at the door.

"Meghan?"

Felicity sighed and stepped to the door. She took a deep breath and unlocked it and let her mother drag her to the hallway. She shut the door behind her, but the lock was stuck, so it didn't close properly. Oliver could hear their whispered conversation.

"Meghan, what is he doing here? I thought he was just your boss. Do you know how rich he is?"

"Was, mom, was."

"Yes, but he could be again. And he's definitely not bad looking either. I mean that would be a proper catch. And he did follow you here."

"Mom, it's not like that..."

"Oh, come on honey. Bring him back downstairs, and we'll get a couple of drinks into him, and maybe..."

"What a good idea, mom," Felicity said suddenly louder. "Why don't you go downstairs to mix those drinks and we'll be right down. Oliver could hear heels clacking on the stairs again, some giggles on the way and a burst of laugher from the living room."

Felicity slipped back into the room and threw a disgusted look at Oliver, who seemed entertained by her humiliation.

"Come on, think fast," Felicity said as she pushed the window open. She turned to grab some things from her tiny closet and stuffed them into a pale pink carpet bag with the name Meghan on it in sparkly little stars. Oliver stared at her outfit and when he didn't move, Felicity turned to look at him. "What? Did you leave your climbing skills in Starling? Go on, I'll throw the bag down to you. Mind you, my tablet's in there so if you drop it..."

"Are you going to climb down the side of the building wearing that?" Oliver asked.

"What do you think, I started wearing skirts yesterday?" Felicity scoffed.

"What about your mother?"

"Oh, she was already so drunk, she'll forget I'm even in the Vegas area after the next shot. Which was five minutes ago. Now hurry up!"

Oliver climbed out of the window and dropped to the porch roof. He swung himself down from there to the ground below Felicity's window. A minute later he caught the pink bag and then stood waiting as Felicity climbed down to the porch roof, using the windowsills as handholds. All would have gone well, but when she was crawling across the porch to the edge where she couldn't be spotted from any of the windows, she lost her balance and gave a small cry as she fell. Oliver caught her easily. They froze in place as the noises inside seemed to grow quiet. Oliver started striding toward the pavement Felicity still in his arms. He didn't stop before they got to the street corner.

"It's quite nice," Felicity said, looking up at Oliver. "Being carried by you."

"I've carried you loads of times," Oliver replied, holding her for a second longer, but then he set her feet on the ground.

"So I've heard, never actually been conscious at the time," she muttered, smoothing her dress and finding her balance on her heels.

"You climbed out of the house in those?" Oliver gawked.

"Duh, didn't go so well though, did it?"

 

A cab was ambling by the grocery store a few blocks away and the driver turned to watch as Felicity climbed in, feathers and all.

Felicity was quiet for a while, fiddling with her phone.

"Just sent a text to John, that I'm alive and hale and he doesn't need to worry."

"I should send him a photo of you, and he'd be on the next flight out."

"It's not so bad..." Felicity said, looking down at herself, and then grabbed a chunk of hair where the color from the feathers had started to spread into her hair. "Oh shit."

When they got to Oliver's hotel, Felicity locked herself in the bathroom and emerged a while later wearing a bright blue top and jeans and holding her hair up, where a comb has stuck in it.

"Oliver, I know you are the dash-into-danger kind of type, but would you please help me with this?" she said miserably. "Surely you had to pluck some chickens on the island."

"Pheasants," Oliver replied and nodded. Felicity took out her tablet and sat cross legged on the edge of the wide bed with her back to Oliver. Oliver sighed. It was almost like struggling with his sister's hair when she had got some gum stuck in it, except the feathers were everywhere.

"So. What's the plan?" Felicity asked as she drew up the blueprint for the glass-steel monstrosity.

"The usual. We catch the bad guy, preferably his minions as well, send them to prison and then we go home."

"Umm... But catch him at what? If he hasn't been caught yet, how are we going to do it? And the going home part for me will be a bit postponed, since I kind of think I need to be there when my mother finds out that her fiancé is a criminal."

"Sorry, I hadn't thought about that. But you know it's for the best. And I know that we can catch him even though no one else has because you are brilliant."

Felicity nodded absentmindedly and drew up the file they had on Dwayne Hart and started reading. After a while Oliver leaned over her shoulder to see why she had fallen silent. Tears were sliding down Felicity's face, threatening to drop on the tablet.

"Did I pull too hard," Oliver said, letting go of her hair, but then he saw her stunned expression.

"The bastard... that slime ball... He's into child trafficking, among other things." Felicity let out a quiet sob. "Oh, mom... Stupid, stupid stupid..." 

Oliver wrapped his arm around her shoulder as she cried. Oliver realized she was probably a bit more drunk than he had realized, when she slumped against him in exhaustion. He moved her a bit toward the middle of the bed and climbed next to her. She curled against his side, her head on his shoulder, her eyes squeezed shut. Oliver kept stroking her still feathery hair.

"Come on, tell me about your day, he said after she had calmed down a bit."

Felicity started slowly from her mother's phone call, and explained how reluctantly she had come to Vegas, and how she had finally arrived yesterday and met the monster and wrecked her phone and then been swept into the ugly mansion to listen to her mother chatter endlessly and to avoid the man as much as she could. Then she had been forced to grit her teeth and smile through a cocktail party, where she had met the friends that her mother had made after she started seeing the monster. Finally she had collapsed on a bed in a room that one of the staff had shown to her, someone called Dean, who was apparently some kind of mixture of a driver and bodyguard, rather like Diggle was pretending to be for Oliver.

This morning her mother had swept her to a tour of the expensive clothing stores, finding the most awful stuff everywhere. They had eaten the most ridiculous dinner with Dwayne, and then headed to her mother's place where Barbie's friends had been waiting with, what seemed to Oliver now like tar and feathers. Felicity had downed at least five drinks before escaping to the porch.

"I'm so glad you're here, Oliver..." Felicity mumbled at last, her speech and breathing had slowed down, and the tears that had been leaking from between her closed eyes had stopped. After a few minutes she was asleep. Oliver picked a couple of pieces of feather from her lips, smoothed her cheek and then closed his own eyes.


	3. A lazy plan

When Felicity woke up, she had a plan. Oliver had thrown his arm over her at some point in the night, and Felicity slowly and carefully extricated herself from under it. There was no point on indulging on her pointless crush on him. She had thought she was well over it, but it was very hard to hold on to that thought when the man was confessing his love for her, however fake that confession had been. But they never talked about that. She had tried. Then she had started to feel like her mother, being the only one to utter more than just a few words and she had decided to let it go. It was probably better this way.

Her glasses were on the night stand next to Oliver. She slipped them on and glanced at the mirror. Her hair was still a mess, so she found a hairband in her bag and pulled it back in a bun which had some feathers poking out of it. She tiptoed to the door, grabbed the key from the table next to it and slipped out. She returned with a huge bottle of water, two cups of coffee and an assortment of sandwiches in a paper bag. The door thudded shut behind her and Oliver jumped up grabbing the bed cover next to him, crying out her name.

"Sorry," Felicity said. "I hope that's not how you normally wake up."

Oliver relaxed back on the bed and took the coffee cup Felicity was offering. She sat on the other half of the bed, crossed her legs and dropped the bag of sandwiches between them opening the bottle of water.

"I really needed this," she sighed, holding the cold bottle first to her forehead. She dug some aspirin from the pink bag and took it after eating half of a sandwich that tasted like it was just filled with mayonnaise.  At five in the morning, there were not many places open and the variety at those that were was questionable.

Oliver put the coffee on the night stand and turned to his side. He closed his eyes again and was silent for so long that Felicity thought he had fallen asleep again.

"You really have to wash your hair to get that stuff out of it. My mouth is full of feathers," he muttered, startling Felicity, who had finished the water and taken out her tablet again. She stared at it for a while, but decided that a shower would probably do more good for her hung over brain.

All of the color didn't wash off, but the shower seemed to clear Felicity's head even more. Not enough though that the sight of sleeping Oliver didn't stop her for a moment. He had turned onto his back and his hands were laced together on his stomach. His mouth was slightly open and his face totally relaxed. Felicity stood by the bathroom door drying her hair with a towel and let herself enjoy the sight for once. She hadn't allowed herself to stare at him while he was training anymore. But she could steal this short moment.

There was a small worryline that Felicity had noticed deepening at the beginning of his left eyebrow, but it seemed a bit less deep now. His neck seemed a bit longer when he was relaxed. When he was awake, the tension made his shoulders move a little when he breathed, but now only his chest rose and fell slowly. Felicity cursed her luck that every time she had been pressed against that lovely wide chest, carried by those strong arms, was when she had been either unconscious, scared out of her wits or hurt. Now she could add drunk to the list. When her gaze lowered to his stomach, his fingers twitched slightly. Felicity's eyes flew back to his face. There was a slight smile on his lips and at first Felicity thought he was just smiling in his sleep, but then she saw his eyes were open just a crack. Probably at her horrified expression, the smile spread further. Felicity turned quickly to the mirror and shook out her hair.

"I suppose there's a clog of feathers in the shower drain," Oliver said languidly. Felicity saw in the mirror that he didn't move.

 "Yes, because that's what they don't teach us at MIT. Clearing the shower drain," Felicity snapped, but could see that Oliver smiled again.

"You are really cranky when you're drunk or hung over," he commented.

"Yes, and it's annoying how calm you are when it's not your family for once that's fucked up," Felicity said and regretted it immediately when she saw Oliver's eyes fly open.

"I'm sorry, Felicity..." he started.

"No, Oliver, I'm sorry," she sighed and threw herself next to him on the bed and squeezed her eyes shut. "I think you're right, I really am cranky when I wake up hung over. Normally I just haven't got anyone to take it out on."

"And you are right, we should get to work. I assume you've already got a plan."

 "How did you know?"

 "You usually do," Oliver replied and turned his head to look at her with sleepy eyes. Felicity turned away from the sight. After a while she felt Oliver getting up. He stepped into the bathroom and she could hear water running. After a while he threw something on the bed next to her. It was her comb, feather free.

                          *                                                         *                                                               *

Oliver had really enjoyed sleeping with Felicity in his arms. He couldn't remember sleeping as peacefully for years. He had enjoyed even more waking up to her walking out of the bathroom with her hair dripping. Even her crankiness was adorable in a way that made Oliver think someone had drugged his drink last night.

But she was right. Her mother wasn't in as direct danger as many of his friends and family had been lately, but the potential was real and the sooner they resolved this, the better.

He took a quick shower trying not to think of Felicity. It seemed to take more and more effort nowadays. It was partly as painful as repressing his other feelings, the dark ones, but on the other hand, it filled a space in his mind with a sort of light that it was becoming harder and harder to contain. And it wasn't only that; being around her made him realize that not everything about him was as dark as he had imagined. Occasionally her brightness glanced off something in him that already had the potential of lightness. No one else had that effect on him.

He stepped out of the bathroom to see her sitting on the bed, bent over the tablet, her hair flowing in every direction, and the light seemed to overflow the room. He held his breath until she looked up.

"So."

"So," Oliver repeated seriously. Felicity pushed her glasses up her nose. "What have you got?"

Felicity explained what she had found in the blueprints. Basically it was nothing more than the parts of the house she had not been shown when she was visiting. And the parts of the house that were specifically hidden from view by architecture. They would have to check them out.

"And," Oliver added after her explanation, "we have one other advantage."

"No," Felicity groaned.

"Yes," Oliver replied firmly. He laid his hand on her shoulder until she looked at him. "Without her we have very little. She's the best source of information that we've got."

"I know," she groaned again and covered her face with her hands. "I just thought that I could have one night off and see..."

"And see what?" he demanded. She was looking down and then shook her head and took out her phone and started writing something. "Felicity, what is it?"

"Oh, nothing, I just made plans with some of my old friends tonight. I'm cancelling them." Oliver saw her look and he could just tell how much she was trying not to look disappointed.

"We could come up with an alternative."


	4. Chapter 4

“You so do not need to do this. “

“Felicity, we talked about this.”

“Yes, I talked and you listened and then you steam-rollered me with a couple of words.”

“Okay, if you can convince me that you don't want to spend the evening with your old friends whom you haven't seen for years...”

Felicity sighed. Oliver was standing on Felicity's mother's porch again, this time in a suit. He corrected his tie, and stepped closer to the door. Felicity had snuck back into the house early in the morning and spent the whole day in her mother's company trying to concentrate on what she said. It was really hard, almost like trying to hear footsteps a mile away in the hum of traffic. She was so used to tuning out her mother, that her head had started to ache from the effort around lunch time. And she had heard nothing of interest to their case for her trouble.

“Maybe she'll talk more about Hart to me,” Oliver laid a hand on Felicity's shoulder. “And it shouldn't be a problem to follow her train of thought. I always listen to you, and understand most of it.”

“You have no idea, what you are getting into. It's not the content but the quantity.” Felicity didn't answer his smile.

The door opened and Felicity's mother stepped out of the door. She was dressed in a glittery black dress and dangerously high heels. Her face was made up and her hair spread in a halo around her head.

“Oliver, you're here already, good. Why did you keep him out here on the porch, honey? It feels like you are sneaking around for some reason. But you have no reason to sneak around, right?” she didn't wait for a reply. “It is so strange that your business associates hadn't arranged a tour of the casinos for you or anything for the evening, Oliver. But we are more than happy to take you out.”

“Mrs. Johnson...” Oliver started.

“Oh, honey, call me Barbie, everyone does. Except Meghan of course, who insists on calling me mother, publicly. Which is ridiculous of course. And Dwayne, who likes to call me Barbara. I really don't mind, but I've been called Barbie my whole life, so it really seems a bit strange sometimes. Ah, his car is here. Unfortunately he has to meet some people, so we'll be having dinner together, but he won't join us for the casinos then later. I really don't understand Meghan, what is so important in these old friends of yours that you can't give up your evening to spend it with your friend and me. I know you can't come to the casinos but at least dinner...” Barbie descended from the porch and headed towards a limousine that seemed altogether too long for the whole block.

“She called you honey. Now you are in for it,” Felicity muttered. “But I kind of agree with her. You should not have to suffer this. She's my cross to bear.”

“Why did she say that you can't come to the casinos?” Oliver wondered.

Felicity looked away. She picked up her purse from the bench and followed her mother down the stairs.

“That's what you picked up from that? Didn't you hear her saying Hart is meeting some people tonight. Wow, if that's how it's going to be, I really should cancel...”

“It's going to be fine, Felicity.”

They followed Barbie to the car.

“Dwayne is going to meet us at the restaurant,” Barbie announced as soon as they got in. “He's such a sweetheart.”

Felicity, who sat next to her mother, rolled her eyes.

“We're going to drop off Meghan first,” Barbie clarified, as they stopped after a few blocks. She had been silent for an exceptionally long time, applying more lipstick and staring at a small mirror with several different pouty faces. “Of course, she could have walked, since it's so near, but you know how it is with women and our shoes...”

Oliver got quickly out of the car to hold the door open to Felicity. He was about to say something when he heard a small voice call out behind him.

“Fifiii!” A little girl, about three years old, was running down from the house in front of which they were parked. She was dressed in blue pajamas and her feet were bare. Yellow curls of hair stuck out in every direction. She wrapped her arms around one of Felicity's legs before she could grab hold of her.

“Molly dear, let go of Auntie Fe's leg so she can come inside,” said a stern female voice. A smiling woman was standing on the withered lawn and looking Oliver up and down very attentively.

“Oliver, this is my friend Anna, and her daughter Molly,” Felicity introduced, she then ducked down to the little girl and lifted her to her arms. “Molly, this is Oliver. Can you say Oliver?”

“O-ver,” Molly repeated.

“Not quite,” Felicity grinned. “But you'll get there. Oliver here has to go now.”

Oliver ignored Felicity and stepped up to Anna, extending his hand. He brought out his most charming smile. Felicity nudged him in the ribs as she squeezed between Oliver and her friend, pushing Molly into Anna's arms and turned to push Oliver towards the car.

“You look like you are about to start snooping in the wrong place,” she hissed. “Concentrate on my mother.”

“Have fun, Fifi,” Oliver snorted before disappearing into the car with a huge grin on his face.

                                                          *                          *                          *

Felicity sighed when she watched the car slide around the corner. She knew that the best solution wasn't having Oliver spend the evening with her mother, who would blab everything, but then again, she was not sure about what solution she was talking about. There was nothing so very embarrassing in her past.

“Do you always make such puppy dog eyes at each other?” Anna asked as they entered the house. Molly had ran ahead to gather her fort of plushy toys for Felicity's inspection.

“Excuse me?” Felicity sputtered. “We do not! I don't... He is my boss! I mean he was my boss and now he's my...” she stopped abruptly, since she couldn't possibly explain how exactly Oliver was her partner. Anna would get an entirely wrong idea about that.

“Whatever you say,” Anna laughed. “Molly wants you to read her a bedtime story. I'll be waiting for you here with a glass of red wine and compiling a list of questions.”

Felicity certainly looked forward to the wine, but not the questions. She almost dozed off in the middle of Molly's toys as they neared the end of the story, but dragged herself from the bed when she noticed that Molly was already asleep.

“Poor baby,” Anna said from the door. “She was looking forward to your coming tonight so much that she exhausted herself in fussing about it.”

“I know, I know. I should visit more often,” Felicity whispered tiptoeing out of the room.

“I wondered if you had actually fallen asleep or if you just wanted to avoid my questions.”

“Why would I want to do that?” Felicity said innocently as she sunk into an armchair in the living room.

Of all her friends' houses, she loved this the most. Anna had lived there with her mother until she passed away and then a few years ago with Molly's father, who had moved on, and now Molly was living in the room Anna had grown up, and Anna in her mother's room.

 Felicity could never imagine anyone else living in that house. It looked the same as the other houses on the block, but it was filled with books. Anna, and her mother both loved flowery things, so every bit of wall that wasn't bookshelves, had some kind of flower print on it. The kitchen had yellow roses on a white background, the foyer had turquoise flowers on grey. The living room was patched with different kinds of flowery wallpaper in between the bookshelves.

The rooms were as familiar as the books on the shelves. There were a couple of shelves with new books on them, but Felicity could pick out the rest in her sleep. She knew exactly where to find the Russian and French classics, the historical romances that they had giggled over as teenagers, the English classics were lined on a few shelves, and the American ones on another. And by shelves, she meant walls. Felicity had always loved the corner where all the non-fiction books were crammed. There was an old Atlas from the sixties and Gray's Anatomy, books on phonetics and computer science from the early years, books about trees and compilation books of random facts.

She breathed in the familiar smell of books and took the wine glass Anna offered her.

“So, why did your boss follow you to this hell hole? And more importantly, why on earth is he spending the evening with your mother of all the people?”

Felicity realized she had never properly appreciated Oliver's fortitude in keeping the Arrow from the people closest to him. She had been aware of it, but since all her closest friends lived elsewhere, she didn't have to experience it herself. Until now.

“He's really just...” What could she say? Being nice? That would sound awfully dumb. And not to underestimate the people around Oliver, but Anna was one perceptive woman. Felicity wished the rest of the gang would arrive sooner than later.

At that moment there was the sound of a car door slamming and the voices of two women and a man, who kept talking all the way to the door.

“Okay, you're off the hook for a little while, but we are not done talking about this.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! More to come soon.


End file.
